Introduction
Lately, we’ve seen an increase in “Instagram suspended my account for 30 days” or “Your account has been disabled for violating our terms”. Imagine you have been building your career as a creator day and night, through thin and thick. One day you wake up, and then you see that your TikTok account has been suspended, or you have an Instagram ban, or you’ve suddenly lost thousands of followers. You will first experience a significant setback; even worse, all the hard work you’ve put in so far could be quickly gone just like that.
Additionally, 65% of the creators feel overworked and underpaid. Furthermore, 93% of the creators think that being a “creator” has introduced stress that has “negatively impacted their lives”. This, included with the rising costs of living, causes creators to have a hard time entirely focusing on their awesome, creative content.
For this reason, creators should learn the best practices and techniques supporting their path to creator independence.
What is creator independence?
Being an independent creator covers several points. This is the long process that creators go through while they build their careers.
Independent creator creates content that’s aligned with their passion and vision. They create content their audience expects rather than trying to please the algorithm to go viral. The creator owns their audience and can reach them at any point. Creator independence is visible when the creators have their own fan community place. Creator independence is when a creator is attractive to brands, getting sponsorships and brand deals. Independent creators can start businesses following their passion.
All in all, independence is achieved when you aren’t relying on any of the big tech companies to be able to live from the “creator dream”.
Social media bans and algorithms
Sam Feldt, a multi-platinum-selling artist & producer, has also shared his thoughts on creator independence issues:
“I am sick of social media limiting how I can engage with my fans. As an artist, my fans are the reason I exist. So being able to communicate with them freely, without algorithms controlling our relationship, is critical.
But, unfortunately, on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, the platform, not the creator and fan, comes first. Furthermore, since they are public companies, their shareholders control them, pushing for a return on investment.
This focus on ROI has resulted in algorithms becoming more restrictive every single year. As a result, creators now need to pay large amounts to reach their audience.”
Sam Feldt uses tools like Fangage to create his fan platform, own, engage, and monetize his audience.
The majority of creators still believe that they’re building a real and valuable asset on social media - their audience. They still believe that this audience can be monetized through sponsorships, revenue splits, or direct payments on subscription-selling platforms.
However, the audience that you’re building as a creator - IT’S NOT YOURS. You’re renting the audience from social media and not OWNING your audience.
Creators’ income (p6)
According to Nonfiction and Bodacious, creators are generating income streams through the following practices:
As you can see, there are multiple ways to generate income as a creator. However, you’d need a loyal fan base in most cases to achieve creator independence. Your loyal fanbase is the backbone of your career as a creator. Success wouldn’t be achievable without your fans. This is why you must devise ways to keep them engaged, communicate with them, and reward them. While doing that consistently over time, the chances to monetize your audience become really high.
How to become an independent creator
1. As a creator, you should aim to build a community that’s filled with YOUR superfans rather than reaching a huge audience.
You should be, of course, always trying to reach this larger audience that’s not yours. Platforms like Instagram are great for discovering new content - this is where people see your content and decide whether to follow you. Followers aren't necessarily loyal fans, so you have to start funneling or converting your real, loyal fans into your own platform, and this brings me to my second takeaway.
2. OWN a platform that’s YOURS.
This can be a Fangage fan platform, a newsletter, an app, or a blog. Think of it as a place where you can always express your opinion, and reach everyone that’s part of your audience in that place.
3. Create more content you’re passionate about and less content to please the algorithms.
The best content that will get you independence as a creator is the one that you’re really passionate about. This is the content of why your fans are loyal to you and become supporters. Of course, you should be, from time to time, posting content that’s favorable for the TikTok algorithms, for example. This can be creating a challenge or trying to get a song of yours viral. However, the main goal is to filter the new audience you will discover to your own fan platform, which we discussed in the previous point.
Conclusion
Creator independence is definitely the future. As social media giants dominate the market, more and more creators feel burned out and unable to control their audience, brands, income streams, etc. That’s why our mission is to help YOU, the creator, to become independent.
Of course, social media will still play a big role in reaching new audiences. Of course, you still need to be putting your content on social media. As a creator, it’s crucial to try and funnel your new viewers and followers to your own fan platform. In other words, create your community where the audience is YOURS and not rented. Focus on niches rather than trying to get as broad a reach as possible. See how other creators are using Fangage.
At Fangage, our mission is to empower creators to build independent careers by giving you complete control of your brands, fan data, and earnings. And this is exactly what we will be teaching you. We will constantly be updating this article page with resources you can use that will accelerate your growth and make you an independent creator. In the meantime, check our RESOURCES page to help your growth as a creator.
